THE NEWS IN PRINT

A few months back, I had written about 3D printers from Idealab for homes and small offices. We had seen images of the built models and nothing more. Here's a video of a professional 3D printer from Z-Corporation, the ZPrinter 450. This printer is targeted for offices and is a giant machine as you would see in the video.

There are 7 easy steps to obtain a 3D model from this printer. It starts with loading the printer with the 3D model till dusting and applying a bonding liquid. This commercial video shows all the different steps involved and is pretty interesting too. You can see a 3D model emerge from the scratch.

ZPrinter 450 is tipped to be the fastest 3D printer in the market and the cheapest as well. It creates 3D models in hours as compared to days by its competitors. The company claims that the printer is cheap, it's around £20,000 for a single printer; 100 times more expensive than a regular office laser printer. But, if your job needs such a modeler, price will never be in question though.

World's latest super device is about to hit a new mark. A specially made inkjet printer can print with a minimum diameter of 250 nanometers. A normal inkjet printer prints with a minimum dot size of 25 micrometers. E-jet is the latest nano manufacturing inkjet printer which has a potential to turn the tables over other nano manufacturing devices.

E-jets have the capability of squirting any material out of the cartridge which rapidly synthesizes complex nanoscale structures. Different products like plastic electronics, flexible displays, photo voltaic cells, bio-medical cells and much more can be manufactured through this special printer. Other applications include printing precise patterns of electrically conducting polymers, carbon nanotubes and DNA structure.

The technology behind e-jets is a little complex. Conventional inkjet printers print by pushing the ink out of the cartridge using heat or physical pressure. Same technology cannot be used for printing nano dots as the force needed to squirt out such tiny dots is tremendous.

E-jets don't push the ink, instead pull it. Pulling is possible by placing electrically charged particles within the ink. Creating an opposite charge on the medium pulls the ink out of the hole.

While this printer is still in its inception stage, researchers have found that the printing speed is extremely slow. Their work is cut-out to find a way to fasten the nano printing process. Many of them might have sleepless nights in days to come. As for me, every day I wake after a good night's sleep, I find a new use for an inkjet printer. Aren't they amazing?

Probably the smartest invention ever made is the inkjet printer. The idea of squirting liquid in a desired fashion has turned the world around. We have witnessed and seen an inkjet printer being used to produce unimaginable things. Blood vessels are the latest victims of getting artificially replicated through an inkjet printer.

Japanese researchers have drafted a special inkjet printer at the Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology in Tokyo, which is built on multi-layer technology and has pin point precision to produce blood vessels from digital designs. They used a printer to inject a combination of cells into a calcium chloride solution to form building blocks of artificial veins and capillaries.

This test is a lab based project and could be the setting stone for crucial life saving replications. Experts in the bio-technology field feel that the realistic target of producing such artificial living cells could be anywhere between 5 and 20 years.

via Print Week

Hewlett Packard wanted to provide users a way to print documents almost on any printers available publicly while travelling. Cloudprint is the code name for this project; it allows users to share, print and store documents using a cell phone.

Here's the concept. This service requires users to store their documents on HP servers which are accessible through internet. The stored file is provided with a code which is sent to the user's cell phone as a SMS. This file can be retrieved as a PDF by entering the document code or the cell phone number and it can be printed from a nearby printer.

I can store documents online using any of my web mails. Why in this technologically advanced world do I need to depend on HP's servers to save my files? This is not April, so this 'innovation' cannot be considered a joke either. HP's great technological advancement which permits users to print from any printer around the world is surely the biggest flop of 2007.

Even failures have a silver lining in them. This service also incorporates a directory service involving Google maps for finding the closest available printer.

via NY Times

The last time I heard about 3D printers was during the release of desktop factory by Idealab. Desktop factory was designed for homes to create objects for educational purpose for kids and for architects. Now, the attention is on the medical field where 3D printers will be used to print/create artificial bones. Several successful tests have been conducted on animals in the past two years and human testing will soon follow.

This research is a joint venture conducted by Tissue Engineering Department at the University of Tokyo Hospital and Next21. These tests are based on trials conducted by Welsh Corgi and others in the past two years.

To make an artificial bone with this technology, a 3D computer model of the bone is first created based on the patient's X-ray and CT scan data. The computer model is then sliced into a large number of cross-sections and the data is sent to a special 3D inkjet printer, which works sort of like an ordinary inkjet printer by transferring tiny droplets of liquid onto a surface. However, unlike ordinary printers that print on paper, this one prints onto thin layers of powdered alpha-tricalcium phosphate (alpha-TCP). The "ink"� is a water-based polymer adhesive that hardens the alpha-TCP it comes into contact with. By repeatedly laying down the powder and printing successive layers on top of one another, the printer is able to physically reproduce the desired bone to an accuracy of one millimeter.

Printed artificial bones have many similar characteristics as the natural bones such as lightweight, porous and strong. The printed bone is biodegradable which enables natural bone to grow around it and eventually replace it.

Printed bones are found to be at least ten times stronger than conventional artificial bones that are made of hydroxylapatite but not strong enough to replace weight bearing natural bones. Printed bones are cheaper, quicker and easier to construct.

This technology is projected to be available for commercial use in 2010 if all testing goes well.

via Pink Tentacle